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War on Qatar

Arab powers sever Qatar ties, citing support for militants

The Arab world's biggest powers cut ties with Qatar on Monday, accusing it of support for Islamist militants and Iran, and reopening a festering wound two weeks after U.S. President Donald Trump's demand for Muslim states to fight terrorism.

Qatar, a small peninsular nation of 2.5 million people that has a large U.S. military base, denounced the action as predicated on lies about it supporting militants. It has often been accused of being a funding source for Islamists, as has Saudi Arabia.

By Noah Browning | DUBAI
The Arab world's biggest powers cut ties with Qatar on Monday, accusing it of support for Islamist militants and Iran, and reopening a festering wound two weeks after U.S. President Donald Trump's demand for Muslim states to fight terrorism.

Qatar, a small peninsular nation of 2.5 million people that has a large U.S. military base, denounced the action as predicated on lies about it supporting militants. It has often been accused of being a funding source for Islamists, as has Saudi Arabia.

Iran, long at odds with Saudi Arabia and a behind-the-scenes target of the move, blamed Trump's visit last month to Riyadh and called for the sides to overcome their differences.

"What is happening is the preliminary result of the sword dance," tweeted Hamid Aboutalebi, deputy chief of staff to Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, referring to Trump's joining in a traditional dance with the Saudi king at the meeting.

Closing all transport links with Qatar, the three Gulf states gave Qatari visitors and residents two weeks to leave, and Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Egypt banned Qatari planes from landing and forbade them from crossing their air space.

Qatar's stock market index sank 7.3 percent, with some of the market's top blue chips hardest hit, and some Egyptian banks said they were suspending dealing with Qatari banks.

The UAE and Saudi Arabia stopped exports of white sugar to Qatar, a potential hit to consumers during the holy month of Ramadan, when demand is high. Some residents in Qatar began stockpiling food and supplies, an expatriate said.

"People have stormed into the supermarket hoarding food, especially imported ones. ... It's chaos - I've never seen anything like this before," said Eva Tobaji, an expatriate resident in Doha, told Reuters after returning from shopping.

Supply difficulties quickly developed. Two Middle East trade sources spoke of thousands of trucks carrying food stuck at the Saudi border, unable make the sole overland frontier crossing into Qatar.

About 80 percent of Qatar's food requirements are sourced via bigger Gulf Arab neighbors. Trade sources pointed to the likelihood of shortages growing in Qatar until the crisis eased.

Along with Egypt, however, the UAE and Saudi Arabia could be vulnerable to retaliation, being highly dependent on Qatar for liquefied natural gas.

'WORRISOME'

The hawkish tone on Tehran and on terrorism that Trump brought in his visit to Muslim leaders in Riyadh is seen as having laid the groundwork for the diplomatic crisis.

"You have a shift in the balance of power in the Gulf now because of the new presidency: Trump is strongly opposed to political Islam and Iran," said Jean-Marc Rickli, head of global risk and resilience at the Geneva Centre for Security Policy.

"He is totally aligned with Abu Dhabi and Riyadh, who also want no compromise with either Iran or the political Islam promoted by the Muslim Brotherhood."

The United States called for a quick resolution of the dispute, and does not want to see a "permanent rift," a senior U.S. administration official said.

"There’s an acknowledgement that a lot of Qatari behavior is quite worrisome not just to our Gulf neighbors but to the U.S.," the official said. "We want to bring them in the right direction."

A State Department official said all U.S. partnerships with Gulf nations were vital and called on all parties to quickly resolve their differences.

The U.S. military said it had seen no impact to its Gulf-area operations, intended mainly as a bulwark against Iran, and added it was grateful for Qatar's long-standing support of a U.S. presence and commitment to regional security.

The diplomatic bust-up threatens the international prestige of Qatar, which is set to host the 2022 soccer World Cup.

Soccer's governing body, FIFA, said on Monday it was in "regular contact" with Qatar's 2022 organizing committee, but did not comment directly on the diplomatic situation.

MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD

Qatar's backing of Islamists dates to a decision by the current emir's father to end a tradition of automatic deference to Saudi Arabia, the dominant Gulf Arab power, and forge the widest possible array of allies.

Doha subsequently cultivated not only Islamists like America's foes Iran, Hamas and the Taliban in pursuit of leverage, but also Washington itself, hosting the largest U.S. air base in the Middle East.

Qatar has for years presented itself as a mediator and power broker for the region's many disputes. But Egypt and the Gulf Arab states resent Qatar's support for Islamists, especially the Muslim Brotherhood, which they see as a political enemy.

Muslim Brotherhood groups allied to Doha are now mostly on retreat in the region, especially after a 2013 military takeover in Egypt ousted the elected Islamist president.

The former army chief and now president, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, along with Cairo's allies in Saudi Arabia and the UAE, blacklist the Brotherhood as a terrorist organization. The Brotherhood says it supports only peaceful politics.

Later in the day, the kingdom shut the Saudi bureau of al Jazeera. Al Jazeera says it is an independent news service giving a voice to everyone in the region.

Riyadh also accused Qatar of supporting what it described as Iranian-backed militants in the restive, largely Shi'ite Muslim-populated eastern Saudi region of Qatif, as well as in Bahrain.

Qatar denied it was interfering in the affairs of others.

"The campaign of incitement is based on lies that had reached the level of complete fabrications," the Qatari foreign ministry said in a statement.

Turkey also called for dialogue to settle the dispute and a government spokesman said President Tayyip Erdogan was working for a diplomatic solution to the rift.

Sudan expressed its concern over the row and offered to mediate between all sides.

FALLOUT

A split between Doha and its closest allies could have repercussions around the Middle East, where Gulf states have used their financial and political power to influence events in Libya, Egypt, Syria, Iraq and Yemen.

The economic fallout was already hitting home as Abu Dhabi's state-owned Etihad Airways, Dubai's Emirates Airline and budget carriers Flydubai and Air Arabia said they would suspend all flights to and from Doha indefinitely from Tuesday morning.

Qatar Airways said on its official website it had suspended all flights to Saudi Arabia. Many Gulf airports, including in Qatar, are major hubs for international connecting flights.

The measures are more severe than during a previous eight-month rift in 2014, when Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and the UAE withdrew their ambassadors from Doha, again alleging Qatari support for militant groups. At that time, travel links were maintained and Qataris were not expelled.

Neighboring Kuwait has been mediating in the dispute, and its emir, Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah, urged Qatar's ruler to calm tensions and refrain from escalating the rift, Kuwait state news agency Kuna said.

Al-Sabah called on Qatar's Tamim bin Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani to give efforts at mediation a chance to contain differences, a few hours after Khalid al-Faisal, an adviser to the Saudi king, visited Kuwait.

Saudi Arabia and UAE bit off more than they can chew once they took on Qatar, a country with vast wealth and powerful allies

It has been apparent for some time that the war against the Islamic State (IS) group and its forebear al-Qaeda is by no means the only show in town in the Middle East. In fact, for most of the time, the war on terror has been a sideshow.

The attempt to bring Qatar to heel by closing its borders and effectively laying siege to it has shed light on the real forces competing for dominance of the region in the post-Western world in which we live today.

Three regional blocks are vying for control.

The first is led by Iran - its state actors including Iraq and Syria, and non-state ones the Shia militias in Iraq, Hezbollah and the Houthis.

The second is the ancien regimes of absolute Gulf monarchs: Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, while also including Jordan and Egypt.

The third block is led by Turkey, Qatar, the Muslim Brotherhood and the forces instrumental in the Arab Spring.

In this three-way fight, America’s allies are just as destabilising to regional order as America’s foes, and the campaign launched against Qatar is a prime example of this.

Saudi Arabia has made a strategic miscalculation by attempting to impose its will on little Qatar. Because in so doing, it has upset a regional order on which it relied to confront Iran’s dominance in countries all around the kingdom.

Put another way, if the Iranian-backed civil war in Syria brought Saudi and Turkey together, the Qatari conflict has done the opposite. In fact, it could lead to the construction of a common cause among Iran, Turkey and forces of Sunni political Islam - as bizarre as this may seem.

The two powers would not fall into each other’s arms naturally, but they could come together amid the reckless and shortsighted policies of Saudi Arabia. The Iranian foreign minister Javad Zarif was in Ankara on Wednesday.
Pentagon contradicts Trump’s tweets

The two game changers for Saudi Arabia’s campaign against Qatar are the Turkish parliament’s decision to fast track legislation allowing Turkish troops to be deployed at a base in Qatar, and the statement by Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps accusing Saudi Arabia of responsibility for the attack on the Iranian parliament and the Mausoleum of Ayatollah Khomeini in which 12 died.

This leaves Saudi Arabia isolated. It can bully smaller nations, but it cannot defend its own borders without substantial amounts of foreign military support.

Whatever their commander-in-chief may tweet, the US military in the Gulf is trying very hard to avoid having to provide it. Which is possibly one reason why the White House and the Pentagon have been saying different things about Qatar this week.

Shortly after Qatar’s land border with Saudi was closed at dawn on 5 June, the Pentagon lauded Qatar’s “enduring commitment to regional security”.

It said pointedly about al Udeid airbase, which is the forward base of US Air Forces Central Command, that “all flights continue as planned”. About 10,000 US troops are based there.

Then came Trump’s tweets, which essentially claimed ownership of the extraordinary moves against Qatar by saying they were the fruits of the address he made in Riyadh before 50 Arab and Muslim leaders. And then came a second Pentagon statement, renewing praise of Qatar for hosting US forces.

The Pentagon was joined by Europe, or least the foreign minister of its most important state, Germany. Sigmar Gabriel said: “Apparently, Qatar is to be isolated more or less completely and hit existentially. Such a Trumpization of treatment is particularly dangerous in a region already plagued by crisis.”

Soon after the Turkish decision, Trump was on the phone to the Emir of Qatar offering mediation; 24 hours after his tweet, it seemed the message from his military had gotten through to him.

Miscalculations

Saudi Arabia and the Emirates have now bitten off more than they can chew.

Their first miscalculation was to buy the Trump narrative. When you purchase a Trump product, you buy a lot more with it. There are side effects, not least the sheer amount of resentment, hostility and resistance Trump himself has created at home.

This is not inconsiderable when you review who resents Trump - the CIA, Pentagon, State Department, senators of all colours, and the judges. This is not just America’s deep state, but if it were only them, they are enough to be going on with.

The much-in-the-news Emirati ambassador to Washington, Yousef Al Otaiba, made the classic mistake of thinking that because he had former defence secretary Robert Gates eating out of his hand, the rest of the defence department would do the same. It plainly did not.

Russia’s US ambassador Sergey Kislyak, now dubbed Washington’s most dangerous diplomat, fell to earth over a similar act of hubris. All of these ambassadors confuse their success as lobbyists with foreign policy-making. The two are different.

Their second miscalculation was to assume that because Qatar was small, no bigger nation would come to its defence. Both Saudi and the UAE have significant investments in Turkey, one of which Abu Dhabi made after it had tried to unseat Recep Tayyip Erdogan in a coup. Both thought Turkey would be bought off.

The opposite happened. Erdogan realised that if Qatar were crushed, he would be the only man of that camp standing.

Their third miscalculation was to reveal their real beef with Qatar. It has nothing to do with funding terrorism or cosying up to Iran. In fact the Emiratis do a roaring trade with Iran, and they are part of the coalition accusing Qatar of siding with Tehran.

Their real demands, which were conveyed to the Emir of Kuwait - who is acting as an intermediary - are the closure of Al Jazeera, de-funding of Al Arabi al Jadid, Al Quds al Arabi, and the Arabic edition of Huffington Post, along with the expulsion of Palestinian public intellectual Azmi Bishara.

This is the media that reveals - in Arabic - the stories that these Arab dictators most want their citizens not to read. Not content with muzzling their own media, they want to shut down all media that reveals the inconvenient truth about their despotic, venal, corrupt regimes, wherever it is in the world.
Israel Joins the unhappy party

Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood only come in at number 7 of this demand wishlist. The inclusion of Hamas on this list is another miscalculation, because whatever the US may think about the Palestinian movement, it is popular in the Gulf.

This is where Israel joins the unhappy party. As the hacked emails of Otaiba reveal, the Emiratis and the government of Binyamin Netanyahu are thick as thieves.

The Israeli prime minister is quite right to think that he has the backing of the major Arab states in suppressing all progress to a truly independent Palestinian state. That is about the last thing Egypt, Jordan, the UAE or Saudi Arabia want. The kingdoms are so keen to normalise relations with Israel that a Saudi commentator was recently interviewed for the first time on Israel’s Channel 2.

The Egyptian-Palestinian poet Tamim al Barghouti provided a fitting commentary to this. He wrote on the Facebook page:

“On the 50th anniversary of the Israeli occupation of Jerusalem, an Egyptian-Saudi-UAE-Bahraini-Israeli alliance forms and lays ground and aerial siege around an Arab country for no reason other than supporting the Palestinian and Lebanese resistance and the Arab revolutions over the past two decades, in particular the Egyptian revolution that brought down Israel’s ally and threatened the military authority of Camp David in Cairo. They are not punishing Doha over Syria, Libya, Yemen and the American base.

“They are punishing it for Al Jazeera’s testimony in the wars of Iraq, Lebanon and Gaza and for supporting the Palestinian resistance in 2009, 2012 and 2014 and the Lebanese resistance in 2000 and 2006. They are punishing it for the fall of Mubarak in 2011.

“A bankrupt and terrified military officer who suffers from Macbeth syndrome and who is washing his hands of old blood with a new one and an adolescent who is in a rush to become king and who is ambitious to surpass his cousin to the throne at whatever cost chose the fifth of June specifically in order to announce that their countries had just joined the Israeli strategic depth.”

The final miscalculation? Qatar is not Gaza. It’s got friends with big armies - a country with a population smaller than Houston has got a sovereign wealth fund worth $335bn. It is the largest producer of natural gas in the Middle East. It has a relationship with Exxon. The Saudis and Emiratis are not the only players in Washington. And even Gaza has survived its siege.

Jail term up to 15 years and $136,000 fines could be handed out to offenders, attorney general statement says.

The United Arab Emirates has banned people from publishing expressions of sympathy towards Qatar and will punish offenders with a jail term of up to 15 years, the UAE-based newspaper Gulf News and pan-Arab channel Al-Arabiya reported.

In a statement released on Wednesday, UAE's Attorney General Hamad Saif al-Shamsi said sympathising with Qatar was a cybercrime punishable by law.

"Strict and firm action will be taken against anyone who shows sympathy or any form of bias towards Qatar, or against anyone who objects to the position of the United Arab Emirates, whether it be through the means of social media, or any type of written, visual or verbal form," Gulf News quoted Shamsi as saying in the statement.

The Federal Public Prosecution also announced that according to the Federal Penal Code and the Federal law decree on Combating Information Technology Crimes, anyone who threaten the interests, national unity and stability of the UAE will face a jail term from three to 15 years, and a fine not less than AED 500,000 ($136,000).

Since the diplomatic row erupted, slogans against and in support of Qatar have been among the top topics discussed on Twitter in Arabic, which is a hugely popular medium of expression in the Arab world, particularly in Saudi Arabia.

Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt severed diplomatic ties and transport links with Qatar on Monday, accusing it of supporting "extremism".

The dispute between Qatar and the Arab countries escalated after a recent hack of Qatar's state-run news agency.

On Tuesday, Saudi Arabia's Foreign Minister Adel Al-Jubeir told reporters in Paris that Qatar must end its support for the Palestinian group Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood before ties with other Gulf Arab states could be restored.

Hamas said in a statement that al-Jubeir's remarks "constitute a shock for our Palestinian people and the Arab and Islamic nations".

German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel accused US President Donald Trump of stirring up conflicts in the Middle East and risking a new arms race.

The dispute comes less than a month after Trump visited Saudi Arabia and called for Muslim nations to unite against "extremism".

Qatar said there was "no legitimate justification" for several nations severing diplomatic ties and the decision was in "violation of its sovereignty".

Israeli officials have gleefully endorsed the position of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates in a growing confrontation with Qatar, the most public acknowledgment yet of the deepening alliance between certain Gulf states and Tel Aviv over their common enmity towards Iran.

Meanwhile, evidence has emerged of close cooperation between the United Arab Emirates and a key Israel lobby group to pressure Qatar over its support for the Palestinian resistance organization Hamas.

On Monday, Saudi Arabia and several of its satellite states, including the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, broke off diplomatic relations with Qatar and imposed a blockade, cutting land, sea and air links to the country.

Regional media reported that shelves in stores in Qatar, whose only land border is with Saudi Arabia, were quickly emptied as residents feared a prolonged closure could lead to food shortages.

Justifying its decision, Saudi Arabia has accused Doha of “grave violations” such as “adopting various terrorist and sectarian groups aimed at destabilizing the region,” including the Muslim Brotherhood, Islamic State, also known as ISIS, and al-Qaida.

Israel’s “opportunity”

Israeli officials were quick to offer their support to Saudi Arabia.

“New line drawn in the Middle Eastern sand,” Michael Oren, Israel’s deputy minister for diplomacy, proclaimed on Twitter. “No longer Israel against Arabs but Israel and Arabs against Qatar-financed terror.”

Israeli defense minister Avigdor Lieberman declared that the crisis was an “opportunity for cooperation” between Israel and certain Gulf states.

“It is clear to everyone, even in the Arab countries, that the real danger to the entire region is terrorism,” Lieberman claimed. He added that the Saudi-led bloc had cut ties with Qatar “not because of Israel, not because of the Jews, not because of Zionism,” but “rather from fears of terrorism.”

Chagai Tzuriel, a top official in Israel’s intelligence ministry, told The Times of Israel that Qatar was a “pain in the ass” to other “Sunni” Arab states allied with Israel.

Israel’s former defense minister Moshe Yaalon also expressed backing for the Saudi-led sectarian coalition. “The Sunni Arab countries, apart from Qatar, are largely in the same boat with us since we all see a nuclear Iran as the number one threat against all of us,” he said at a ceremony celebrating the 50th anniversary of Israel’s military occupation of the West Bank, Gaza Strip and Syria’s Golan Heights.

On Tuesday, Saudi Arabia continued to escalate the situation, suspending the license of Qatar Airways and ordering its banks to sell the Qatari currency.

But Qatar has often found itself backing different horses: Doha supported the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, while Riyadh has backed the regime of Abdulfattah al-Sisi, the army chief who led the 2013 military coup that overthrew the elected Muslim Brotherhood president in Cairo.

These differences had soured relations between Qatar and Saudi Arabia for years.

But Saudi Arabia may have been emboldened to act now, after US President Donald Trump gave full endorsement to strengthening a Saudi-led anti-Iran alliance during his visit to Riyadh last month.

Targeting Hamas and Iran

Qatar has continued to host the leaders of the Palestinian resistance group Hamas and has been under pressure to expel the group’s officials – Israeli media claims that Qatar did expel two officials are unconfirmed.

But the biggest difference appears to be that Qatar has not been willing to fully sign up to the Saudi-Israeli alliance against Iran.

A deal in April in which Qatar allegedly paid about $700 million in ransom to release members of its royal family abducted by an Iran-affiliated group in Iraq reportedly enraged officials in other Gulf states.

Qatar also reportedly paid about $300 million in ransom to several al-Qaida linked groups in Syria, according to The Financial Times.

Things came to a head around the time of Trump’s visit and his summit with regional leaders.

Qatar’s national news agency published comments attributed to the country’s leader Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, calling Iran “a regional and Islamic power that cannot be ignored” and asserting that “it is unwise to face up against it.”

Tamim also purportedly said his country’s relations with Israel were “good.” Qatar has flatly denied the statements are real, claiming that the news agency’s website and social media accounts were hacked.

Qatar has historically maintained relations with Israel, even welcoming its then foreign minister Tzipi Livni to Doha in 2008.

But the Qatar-based network Al Jazeera has cited the fake comments as a trigger for the crisis, accusing Saudi Arabia and its allies of using them as a pretext to move against Qatar.

UAE embraces Israel

Another factor is the close relationship between the United Arab Emirates and Israel.

The emails reveal “a remarkable level of backchannel cooperation” between the Emirates and the think tank, which is funded by billionaire Sheldon Adelson, a close ally of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, according to The Intercept.

The email exchanges included complaints from the Israel lobby group about Qatar’s support for Hamas “terrorists.”

An agenda for a meeting between leaders of the Israel lobby group and Emirates ambassador al-Otaiba scheduled for this month includes such items as “Qatar support for radical Islamists” including Hamas, Qatar’s “destabilizing role in Egypt, Syria, Libya and the Gulf” and the role of the Qatar-backed Al Jazeera network.

It also includes ways to reduce the influence Qatar gains from hosting a major US air base.

One of the items on the agenda is “Political, economic, security sanctions.”

The agenda is evidence that the Foundation for Defense of Democracies – a key player in Israel’s anti-Palestinian propaganda – was gearing up to deliver in Washington the anti-Qatar message coming from Riyadh and the United Arab Emirates.

US role

The leaked documents reveal that the Saudi-led bloc is troubled by the influence Qatar gains by hosting the massive American al-Udeid air base.

But this is precisely why the US, the overall imperial power, has no interest in a squabble among states that it views as vassals.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson affirmed the importance of US ties with all the states involved and offered to mediate, urging the feuding rulers to “remain unified.”

The US military lauded Qatar for its “enduring commitment to regional security” and affirmed it had “no plans to change our posture in Qatar.”

Qatar has taken these messages as signs of strong US support, but as ever Trump was quick to throw everything into doubt.

“During my recent trip to the Middle East I stated that there can no longer be funding of Radical Ideology. Leaders pointed to Qatar - look!” Trump tweeted on Tuesday, appearing to directly endorse the Saudi-led campaign against Doha.

“So good to see the Saudi Arabia visit with the King and 50 countries already paying off,” he added. “They said they would take a hard line on funding extremism and all reference was pointing to Qatar.”

“Perhaps this will be the beginning of the end to the horror of terrorism,” the president asserted. More likely, Trump is pouring gasoline on an already burning region.

Qatar's National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) received complaints from Qatari citizens that pilgrims from Qatar were barred from entering the Masjid al-Haram in Mecca, the paper said on Saturday.

Ali bin Smaikh al-Marri, the NHRC head, called the incident a flagrant violation of the right to practise religious rites as permitted by human rights conventions, the paper said.

The NHRC denounced the incident, considering the step a violation of the right to perform religious rituals guaranteed by human rights conventions, Al Sharq added.

It should be noted that Saudi authorities do not normally question people entering the Grand Mosque on their ethnicity or sectarian affiliation.

The claims come a few days after the UAE and Bahrain criminalised "sympathy" for Qatar on social media.

The UAE said offenders would be punished with a jail term of up to 15 years and a $136,000 fine. Bahrain declared it punishable by imprisonment of up to five years.

Since the diplomatic dispute erupted, slogans against and in support of Qatar have been among the top topics discussed on Twitter in Arabic, which is a hugely popular medium of expression in the Arab world, particularly in Saudi Arabia.

The dispute between Qatar and the Arab countries escalated after a cyberattack on Qatar's state-run news agency.

Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the UAE and Egypt severed diplomatic ties and transport links with Qatar on Monday, accusing it of supporting "extremism".

Qatar has vehemently denied the charges.

In its statement, the Qatari government said it has been leading the region in attacking what it called the roots of "terrorism", including giving young people hope through jobs, educating hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees and funding community programmes to challenge agendas of armed groups.

"Our position on countering terrorism is stronger than many of the signatories of the joint statement - a fact that has been conveniently ignored by the authors," the government said.

Whatever beef these arabs have among either other, Islam is above them and their ignorant nationalism. No Muslim should be barred from mecca, especially the grand Mosque for worship. Using that in their political games is so tribal and backward.

Messenger of Allah (saaw) said,

"He is not one us who calls for `Asabiyyah, (nationalism/tribalism) or who fights for `Asabiyyah or who dies for `Asabiyyah."

Somali President, Mohammed Abdullah Farmajo, has been offered $80 million in exchange for his agreement to sever diplomatic relations with the State of Qatar, the New Khalij news outlet reported a prominent journalist has revealed.

Yesterday, the newspaper Somalia Today quoted unnamed sources saying “there was pressure put on the Somali government by Saudi Arabia to reverse Somalia’s decision to stay neutral in the siege imposed by some Arab governments on the State of Qatar.”

The sources confirmed that Saudi Arabia threatened to withdraw financial aid to the Somali government unless Somalia change its neutral stand in which it has called for an end to the political dispute between Qatar and the other Arab nations through dialogue via Islamic organisations like the Arab League and the Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC).

The sources added that “ministers of the Somali government returned from Saudi Arabia after meetings with their counterpart were unexpectedly postponed.” It is understood that the rulers of the UAE, with the knowledge of Saudi Arabia, have already sought to persuade Farmajo, who won the presidency despite opposition from the UAE, to change his position.

Sources close to Mogadishu and Abu Dhabi, who asked not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the issue, explained to the New Khalij that the rulers of the UAE, in particular the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, Mohammed Bin Zayed, would have preferred the former president, Hassan Sheikh Mahmoud, to remain in power, especially because of the concessions that the UAE were given by Mahmoud, including contracts for the unfettered access and management of a number of Somali ports that would have provided the UAE with an important strategic position in trading across the world. The new Somali President, Farmajo, has vowed to reverse a number of agreements, some of which have been described as “illegal”.

Also arriving yesterday in the Somali capital were a Qatari delegation headed by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Sultan Bin Saad Al-Muraikhi, to hold talks between the Gulf States and officials of the Somali Federal government. According to sources, the Qatari delegation met with the Somali Prime Minister, Hasan Ali Khairi, and officials from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and are also expected to meet Farmajo.

The Qatari delegation praised the non-aligned stance taken by government towards the Gulf countries and encouraged Somali leaders to maintain their stance against the embargo on Qatar at any cost.

Somalia allowed Qatar the use of its airspace to break the no fly restriction imposed by the Arab countries. “At least 15 Qatari planes flew through Somali Airspace on the first day of the blockade on Qatar,” the Associated Press quoted an official with the aviation authority as saying.

#GulfTensions
Somalia representative expelled from Quran competition and deported due to Somalia neutrality over Gulf crisis

A competition held during Ramadan for Muslims who have memorised the Quran might have been thought to be above politics.

Apparently not.

Emirati authorities on Monday expelled a Somali who was taking part in the annual competition, which takes place in Dubai, after Somalia refused to break ties with Qatar in the ongoing Gulf dispute.

The Dubai International Holy Quran Award is given annually and is sponsored by Dubai’s government. The prize for first, second and third place, respectively, is AED 250,000 ($68,000), AED 200,000 ($54,000) and AED 150,000 ($40,800).

Ismail Madar, considered a favourite to win, was told he couldn’t continue to compete as a representative for Somalia.

Speaking to local media, Madar said that he felt that the decision was a result of Somalia’s position on the Gulf crisis, with tensions between Qatar and its neighbouring states remaining high.

The United Arab Emirates has taken a lead in the economic blockade of Qatar, alongside Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Egypt, for its alleged support of militant groups. Qatar denies the claims.

“Since Somalia declared its position to not side with Saudi and the UAE against Qatar, there was suspicion against Somalis,” Madar told local media.

“When the media reported the Qatari delegation visited Mogadishu, UAE officials told us to leave the competition,” said the devotional singer.

Before being removed from the competition, Madar was considered a favourite to win.

Madar said he was expecting to come first or second in the competition, saying that “unfortunately they punished me”. He was allegedly given only 10 minutes to leave the premises of the competition.

With a security escort, Madar was taken to the airport and deported back to Somalia.

The incident came after the UAE recalled its ambassador to Mogadishu to protest Somalia’s neutrality in the Gulf crisis.

Somalia has urged both sides to seek dialogue to resolve the dispute.

A Gulf minister allegedly attempted to bribe Somalia’s president, Mohamed Abdullahi "Farmaajo" Mohamed, with $80m to join the boycott of Qatar, and to aid the facilitation of the blockade against them, according to the New Arab.

The former editor in chief of Qatari newspaper Al-Sharq, Jaber al-Harmi, told the New Arab: “The minister had even gone to the extent of trying to pressure Farmaajo through the help of another African country."

June 13, 2017
Saudi Arabia has been accused of making threats to African countries that have refused to support the blockade against Qatar, including veiled threats to deny Hajj visas to African Muslims, French newspaper Le Monde reported.

Riyadh has led a campaign to influence African states to break diplomatic relations with Doha. Seven countries have already yielded but a number of African leaders have refused to support the siege on Qatar. In an attempt to coerce countries refusing to join the blockade, Saudi Arabia has been accused of resorting to coercion and blackmail.

According to the paper, Riyadh was using veiled threats, including complicating the visa process for countries who refused to support the blockade.

African states with a large Muslim population have come under severe pressure to support the siege since it started last week. Many African states have mosques and institutions financed by Riyadh.
Six African countries (Niger, Mauritania, Senegal, Chad, Egypt and the Comoros) have recalled their ambassador from Doha. Others, including Djibouti whose border dispute with Eritrea is being mediated by Qatar, preferred to take a less drastic measure to avoid a future backlash.
Riyadh however is struggling to obtain the support of many Muslim majority countries in Africa. Somalia was the latest, which turned down $80 million in aid to cut ties with Qatar. The countries of the Maghreb – Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia – and Sudan, have called for dialogue without taking sides.Nigeria, which has enjoyed good relations with Qatar, is also not in any position to cut diplomatic relations with Doha without suffering negative consequences.
Saudi was reported to have resorted to exerting pressure on those countries. The first is by threatening to cut off aid which is believed to be modestly successful and the second is said to be veiled threats to make obtaining visas more difficult for Hajj and Umrah.

The map of diplomatic relations between African states and the GCC is more complicated than Saudi initially anticipated. Over the past decade, Qatar has made important avenues in Africa. The emirate is hoping that its generosity will pay off.

Trump goes there to visit his little slaves and they all go crazy against Qatar over night. The end of these Arabs is near when they start blocking Muslims from doing hajj and umrah and entering the House of Allah

Allah's Messenger (S+) said, "One of the signs of the approach of the Last Hour will be the destruction of the Arabs."

King Salman of Saudi Arabia has given Pakistan’s prime minister an ultimatum over Qatar. In an attempt to force Nawaz Sharif to take sides, the monarch jibed, “Are you with us or with Qatar?” the Express Tribune has reported.

The king posed the question during a meeting between the two leaders in Jeddah on Monday as part of the effort to find a diplomatic solution to the Qatar crisis. “Pakistan has told Saudi Arabia it will not take sides in the brewing diplomatic crisis in the Middle East after Riyadh asked Islamabad ‘are you with us or with Qatar’,” the newspaper pointed out.

Pakistan has been treading a careful path since Saudi and other Gulf countries cut diplomatic ties with Qatar. However, the Saudi government wants Pakistan to side with the kingdom.

Citing a senior government official, who was briefed on the talks at the monarch’s palace in Jeddah, the Express Tribune said that Pakistan would not take sides in any event that would create divisions within the Muslim world. “Nevertheless, in order to placate Saudi Arabia, Pakistan offered to use its influence over Qatar to defuse the situation. For this purpose, the prime minister will undertake visits to Kuwait, Qatar and Turkey,” the newspaper added.
#QatarGate

Sharif travelled to Jeddah accompanied by army chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa and other senior officials to discuss the emerging situation in the Gulf. It is thought that Prime Minister Sharif’s mediation visit to Saudi did not achieve any immediate breakthrough.

According to an official statement, Sharif met King Salman in Jeddah and urged an early resolution of the impasse in Gulf in the best interest of all Muslims.

Qatar has accused Saudi Arabia of politicising the Hajj, claiming Riyadh has imposed restrictions on Qatari nationals planning to travel to Makkah for the annual pilgrimage.

Qatar’s National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) said on Saturday that Qatari citizens have been told they can only enter Saudi Arabia through two airports and that they must travel via Doha to be allowed in.

You The NHRC said it has filed a complaint with the UN special rapporteur on freedom of belief and religion over the restrictions, which it said were in “stark violation of international laws and agreements that guarantee the right to worship.”

The restrictions are part of a boycott launched on June 5 by Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt, which saw the group sever diplomatic ties with Qatar and impose a blockade. They accuse Qatar of funding “terrorism,” allegations Qatar has strongly denied.

The four Arab states cut transport links with Qatar, and Saudi Arabia has closed the peninsula’s only land border.

The NHRC said it was “extremely concerned over [Saudi Arabia] politicising religious rituals and using [Hajj] to achieve political gains.”

In response Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister called Qatar’s demand for an internationalisation of the Hajj pilgrimage a declaration of war against the kingdom, Saudi-owned Al Arabiya television said on Sunday, but Qatar said it never made such a call.

“Qatar’s demands to internationalise the holy sites is aggressive and a declaration of war against the kingdom,” Adel al-Jubeir was quoted saying on Al Arabiya’s website.

“We reserve the right to respond to anyone who is working on the internationalisation of the holy sites,” he said.

Qatari Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani said no official from his country had made such a call.

Qatar's former deputy prime minister accused the United Arab Emirates of plotting to invade Doha with an army of mercenaries, according to a report.

Abdullah bin Hamad al-Attiyah levelled the charges on Wednesday in a report published by Spanish daily ABC.

The UAE, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Egypt imposed a blockade and economic sanctions on Qatar in June, accusing it of supporting "extremism" and being too close to Iran, charges Doha has denied.

Attiyah said that the UAE hired a "Blackwater-linked" private security contractor to train thousands of mercenaries to invade Qatar with the aim of overthrowing the emir and replacing him with a ruler subservient to the Saudi-led bloc that is boycotting the gas-rich state, the New Arab website reported.

Attiyah said the plan, which was prepared ahead of the diplomatic spat, was never carried out because US President Donald Trump failed to green-light the assault, the NewArab said.

An unidentified official source told the daily that the soldiers for hire were trained at an Emirati military base in Liwa in the west of the country by Academi, a US security service company formerly known as Blackwater.

Blackwater military contractors killed 17 unarmed Iraqi civilians and wounded 20 in a notorious 2007 massacre in Baghdad that prompted the firm to change its name.

"We estimate that Blackwater trained about 15,000 employees, most of them Colombian and South American," the source told the New Arab.

The New York Times reported as far back as 2011 that Colombians were entering the UAE posing as construction workers to become part of a secret mercenary army being built by Blackwater founder Erik Prince with more than $500m in financing from the oil-rich sheikdom.

The Colombians, along with South African and other foreign troops, were being trained by retired American soldiers and veterans of German and British special operations units and the French Foreign Legion, former employees and American officials told the New York Times.

According to a recent email purportedly sent by the Emirati ambassador to the US, Yousef al-Otaiba, Saudi Arabia came close to "conquering" Qatar before the start of the blockade.

People close to Trump told Bloomberg in September that the Saudi-led bloc considered taking military action against Qatar at the start of the crisis, before the US president urged for calm.

Qatar's former deputy prime minister accused the United Arab Emirates of plotting to invade Doha with an army of mercenaries, according to a report.

Abdullah bin Hamad al-Attiyah levelled the charges on Wednesday in a report published by Spanish daily ABC.

The UAE, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Egypt imposed a blockade and economic sanctions on Qatar in June, accusing it of supporting "extremism" and being too close to Iran, charges Doha has denied.

Attiyah said that the UAE hired a "Blackwater-linked" private security contractor to train thousands of mercenaries to invade Qatar with the aim of overthrowing the emir and replacing him with a ruler subservient to the Saudi-led bloc that is boycotting the gas-rich state, the New Arab website reported.

Attiyah said the plan, which was prepared ahead of the diplomatic spat, was never carried out because US President Donald Trump failed to green-light the assault, the NewArab said.

An unidentified official source told the daily that the soldiers for hire were trained at an Emirati military base in Liwa in the west of the country by Academi, a US security service company formerly known as Blackwater.

Blackwater military contractors killed 17 unarmed Iraqi civilians and wounded 20 in a notorious 2007 massacre in Baghdad that prompted the firm to change its name.

"We estimate that Blackwater trained about 15,000 employees, most of them Colombian and South American," the source told the New Arab.

The New York Times reported as far back as 2011 that Colombians were entering the UAE posing as construction workers to become part of a secret mercenary army being built by Blackwater founder Erik Prince with more than $500m in financing from the oil-rich sheikdom.

The Colombians, along with South African and other foreign troops, were being trained by retired American soldiers and veterans of German and British special operations units and the French Foreign Legion, former employees and American officials told the New York Times.

According to a recent email purportedly sent by the Emirati ambassador to the US, Yousef al-Otaiba, Saudi Arabia came close to "conquering" Qatar before the start of the blockade.

People close to Trump told Bloomberg in September that the Saudi-led bloc considered taking military action against Qatar at the start of the crisis, before the US president urged for calm.

Jared Kushner 'tried and failed to get a $500m loan from Qatar before pushing Trump to take hard line against country'

The failed business deal has reignited concerns about Trump family conflicts of interest

by Emily Shugerman - 10 July 2017
Jared Kushner tried and failed to secure a $500m loan from one of Qatar's richest businessmen, before pushing his father-in-law to toe a hard line with the country, it has been alleged.

This intersection between Mr Kushner’s real estate dealings and his father-in-law’s international issues highlights the difficulties of an administration besiged with an unprecedented number of conflicts of interest.

Early in his real estate career, Mr Kushner purchased a building at 666 Fifth Avenue in New York for $1.8bn – a record-setting deal at the time.

These days, however, more than a quarter of the office space in the building is vacant. According to The New York Times, the building has not generated enough to pay its debts in several years, forcing Kushner Companies to cover the multimillion-dollar difference.

In 2015 – while Donald Trump was firing up his presidential campaign – Mr Kushner was working with his biological father to keep the property from going underwater. The men zeroed in on Qatari billionaire sheikh Hamad bin Abdullah Al-Thani (HBJ) as a potential investor.
HBJ eventually agreed to invest $500m in the property, sources tell The Intercept, on the condition that Kushner Companies found the rest of the money for the multi-billion-dollar project on its own.

For help, Kushner Companies turned to Chinese insurance company Anbang. The company agreed to secure a $4bn construction loan to develop the property in early March. But weeks later, as concerns about conflicts of interest mounted, Anbang pulled out.

Without the help of Anbang, Kushner Companies could not meet the rest of HBJ's funding demands. According to one source in the region, HBJ killed the deal. According to another, he simply put it on hold.

Either way, a diplomatic crisis centred around Qatar broke out shortly thereafter. In early June, at least six Gulf Region countries severed or reduced ties to the country, claiming it had supported terrorism.

The countries issued a list of demands necessary for Qatar to regain favour, including shutting down the media network Al-Jazeera, cutting ties with various Islamist [Muslim] groups, limiting ties with Iran, and expelling Turkish troops.

The move sent the tiny, isolated nation into an economic tailspin. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson quickly encouraged the countries to engage in “calm and thoughtful dialogue“ and asked for “no further escalation by the parties in the region”.
Mr Trump, however, unleashed a string of criticism toward the country, calling it a “funder of terrorism at a very high level”.

“So good to see the Saudi Arabia visit with the King and 50 countries already paying off,” he tweeted on 6 June. “They said they would take a hard line on funding, extremism, and all reference was pointing to Qatar.”

The President’s position took Mr Tillerson by surprise, and sources say he suspected Mr Kushner was behind it all.

A source close to Mr Tillerson told The American Conservative that the Secretary of State is convinced that some of Mr Trump’s remarks were written by UAE ambassador Yousef Al Otaiba – a close friend of Mr Kushner.

“Otaiba weighed in with Jared and Jared weighed in with Trump,” the source said. “What a mess.”

But even if the source’s account of the proceedings is true, it still leaves open the question of why Mr Kushner wanted to convince the President to speak out against Qatar.

Mr Tillerson's reasons for supporting the small country, and urging a quick end to the conflict, however, are more clear: The US runs a crucial airbase out of the country, which runs air campaigns against Isis in Iraq and Syria, and helps protect Israel.

Mr Tillerson left on Monday for a trip to Turkey, Kuwait, the UAE, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia to help mediate an end to the crisis. Kushner Companies did not respond to The Independent’s request for comment.

Trump’s crusade against Qatar isn’t about terrorism – it’s revenge for a failed business deal

Was Qatar singled out for punishment because it cosies up to Iran and is the world’s biggest supporter of terrorism? Or was it because it failed to back The Family?

by Anthony Harwood - 12 July 2017

Another day, another story about one of The Trump Family being up to no good.

First it was a meeting between the President’s oldest son, Donald Jnr, with a pro-Kremlin lawyer who said she had damaging information on Hillary Clinton before the election.

Reports claimed he was specifically told that Natalia Veselnitskaya had material from the Russian government which could help his father’s candidacy.

But he let his visitor into Trump Tower anyway.

Donald Snr was not in the room but his son-in-law, Jared Kushner [a jew], was at the meeting which took place after Trump secured the Republican nomination last year.

Which brings us to Meeting No 2.

A year earlier Kushner was not just in the room but chairing a series of meetings with one of the world’s richest men to re-finance one of his ailing New York properties to the tune of $500m (£388m).

And where was the man with the magic mountain of money from? Qatar.

Unlike the meetings with Natalia which, it is said by the White House, were over in a day when it became clear she had nothing to offer, these talks went on for about two years.

With their immense wealth the Qataris had an awful lot to offer and talks continued beyond the election, before coming to an abrupt end in March when Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim al-Thani walked away.

The reason? Kushner was unable to come up with any co-funding as stipulated by the Qataris from the outset.

No betrayal, no foul play, no double crossing – just what was warned would happen when a Chinese insurance company, which had looked likely to invest, suddenly pulled out.

Fast forward two months and Donald Snr is suddenly the scourge of Qatar.

In a visit to Saudi Arabia he rounds on the tiny Gulf state as the chief financer of terrorism before repeating the claim in the Rose Garden at the White House a few weeks later.

Less than a month later a Saudi-led alliance is emboldened by the President’s words to launch a diplomatic and transport blockade of Qatar which continues to this day.

But was Qatar singled out for punishment because it cosies up to Iran and is the world’s biggest supporter of terrorism? If so, why has America got a 10,000-strong military base there?

Or was it because it failed to back The Family?

It is like some scene out of The Godfather. You can almost hear Don Vito Corleone saying: “Revenge is a dish best served cold.”

Well, maybe lukewarm when you consider how quickly the Trump Family got its retaliation in.

The Kushner office building in question at 666 Fifth Avenue, Manhattan, is in dire financial trouble because it does not generate enough revenue to pay off The Family’s debts, and The Family has less than two years to come up with $1.3bn (£1bn), when the interest-only mortgage is due.

Federal investigators are now also looking at whether Kushner sought Russian financing for the building from the CEO of a Russian state-owned bank in December.

The Kushner Family has form when it comes to revenge. Jared’s father, Charles, once hired a prostitute to seduce his brother-in-law for co-operating with a federal investigation against him.

The trouble is you can’t run the White House like some crazed Mafia outfit, because you’re likely to end up being impeached over conflicts of interest.

But for the moment Trump appears happy to ditch the rule book and accuse his detractors of perpetrating fake news.

This week his Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, is frantically engaged in shuttle diplomacy flying around the Middle East trying to sort out the mess caused by The Don.

The scary thing is how a man with no political experience, who happens to be married to the President’s daughter, can have all this power in the leadership of the free world.

As one of Tillerson’s associates put it: “Rex put two and two together and concluded that this absolutely vacuous kid was running a second foreign policy out of the White House family quarters.”

Kushner has been tasked with finding a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, something which has eluded the greatest political minds for generations.

He is also the President’s lead adviser on relations with China, Mexico and Canada.

But for the moment it is a White House-created mess in the Middle East which the administration is having to clear up.

Tillerson needs to convince leaders in the Gulf that the White House is not running an alternative foreign policy where it sides with Saudi Arabia against Qatar. He also needs to convince the Saudis that its 13 onerous demands on Qatar need to be re-drawn into something that might be negotiated. Tillerson’s shuttle diplomacy is a huge test of American power and influence in the region. The Secretary of State has just reached an agreement with Qatar on the steps it needs to take to reduce support for terrorism. It remains to be seen whether he can convince the Saudis to use this as a basis for a negotiated settlement.

Two extraordinary events have come together to place Al Jazeera in a vise-like squeeze that may result in the death of a major TV documentary expose about the power and operations of the Israel Lobby in the U.S. The same investigative team producing this project created the remarkable four-part film, The Lobby, about the UK Israel Lobby. In that documentary, an undercover operative infiltrated the Israel Lobby and became a trusted figure among activists, leaders, MPs, and even Israeli diplomats who he filmed betraying shocking details of their efforts to derail the political career of a junior British ministers, and to spend $1-million on Israel junkets designed to convey a pro-Israel script to UK political figures.The new documentary follows a similar script.

Al Jazeera recruited someone to infiltrate various Lobby organizations based in Washington. The covert operative rented an apartment in the city and held social events and parties there to which he invited key figures in the pro-Israel community in the nation’s capital. He may have even chatted up Israeli diplomats in DC as the earlier UK documentary did. News of this project has been around for months. The pro-Israel tabloid, Tablet, exposed the identity of the secret operative. Now that the groups know who the mole was they have a pretty good idea of what material he procured that would be in the aired show.That’s where a critical development complicates the process of bringing the program to air.

A few months ago, Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince decided to teach his nation’s little brother, Qatar, a lesson. The Qataris have always been the upstart standing in the shadows of Saudi Arabia. To compensate, they’ve set out to separate them from their neighbor. They’re crafted an independent foreign policy that has embraced states and movements which are anathema to the Saudis, including Iran, Hamas, and the Muslim Brotherhood.

Prince Mohammed bin Salman doesn’t brook opposition easily. He wants total fealty, and nothing less. He detests Qatar for the temerity of it’s independent course. So he decided to cut it down to size by uniting the Sunni states of the Gulf and Egypt against Qatar. He declared a siege, attempting to isolate it from the rest of the Arab world. He accused the emir of Qatar of supporting terrorism, while neglecting that his own kingdom offered an equal amount of support for some of the same Sunni Islamist terrorists of ISIS and al-Qaeda. He made a list of demands of the Qataris before they would be readmitted into his good graces. Many believed that there was a plan afoot for the Saudi military to invade the country and replace its leadership with Arab quislings who would do MBS’ bidding, though that hasn’t happened yet.

So far the Saudi scheme hasn’t worked. But it certainly has placed the emirate under immense pressure. The Qataris have scurried to create a counter-narrative to rebut charges against them. In the process, they determined that one of the key points of leverage might be the American Jewish community. They saw that given Saudi Arabia’s growing friendliness with Israel, if they could manage to cozy up to Israel and its powerful U.S. lobby, it might take some of the sting out of the charges against them.To that end, they hired Nick Muzin, a consummate GOP operative who’d last worked for Ted Cruz’s losing presidential campaign. Muzin, who now receives $300,000 per month to lobby on Qatar’s behalf, devised a tried and true strategy from the Aipac playbook: junkets. Get leading figures in the pro-Israel community to accept all expenses paid trips to Qatar.

Pull out all the stops; wine them and dine them; offer them facetime with the emir. In this way, Alan Dershowitz, Mort Klein, Mike Huckabee and Malcom Hoenlein have taken up the offer.Given that these very same individuals have spoken some of the harshest language regarding the Arab states and their ongoing hostility to Israel, it’s remarkable that they’re singing such a different tune. I wondered how a few 1st class plane tickets, a luxury hotel suite and a few hours with the emir could make these leopards change their spots.That’s when I read about the Al Jazeera documentary. Today, Haaretz published a story acknowledging that almost all of these American Jewish supplicants came to Qatar for one very special reason (there may have been others, but this one was key). They wanted the Al Jazeera documentary killed. They knew if it was aired it would make them look as shabby, venal, and crude as the UK series did. These Lobby leaders also knew they were in a tricky position.

Given that they liked to think of themselves as liberal, and supporters of free speech and press, they couldn’t be seen to take an ax to the production in an overt fashion. They needed to work behind the scenes.That’s where Qatar’s need for new friends in its war with Saudi Arabia came in. In the Haaretz article, a number of the junket participants admitted that they brought up the documentary when they met the emir. The attendees claim that they were told privately that the program would not air. Nick Muzin, confirmed this after consulting with his Qatari collaborators.However, AJ threw them all a curve-ball this week when it sent letters to a dozen Israel Lobby groupsasking for their response to the material in the production. The high-paid executives thought they had it in the bag, when all of a sudden it looked like the cat had escaped. Matters appear to remain in limbo. All Muzin would say was that the documentary would not air “soon.”I know one of the key members of the team producing the documentary. I’ve asked him if he can speak about it and he’s observing total radio silence.

That tells me that: either the documentary is dead and the producers have been told to clam up about it; or the documentary is on track and the AJ powers-that-be do not want anyone on the production team making any statements that might complicate the already knotty situation; or that no decision has been made and the producers have been told that anything they say could derail their project.I do not know which option is most likely. Will the emir deem realpolitik and protection of his kingdom to be more important than a single documentary project? Or will he understand that doing business with the Lobby in such a shoddy fashion could leave a residual bad taste, staining Qatar’s reputation?We should prepare for the possibility that the Lobby, powerful as it is, will find the right buttons to push with the Qataris and get the documentary cancelled. If that happens, it’s important that blame be nailed on the wall for all to see, like Martin Luther’s theses.

This could be yet another lesson in the suffocating political power of the Lobby in national politics. It should provide an example of how Israel’s interests trump American values of freedom and fairness. When Israel or the Lobby come under attack nothing must stand in the way: not free speech, free press, political debate.

UPDATE: Today, a Qatari foreign ministry spokeswoman rebutted the Haaretz reports:"Explaining Qatar’s position, she said: “…Qatar denies the false news about requesting the Al Jazeera Network to suspend the airing of the documentary that was produced by the latter.”

We see this news in the context of the blockading countries’ tireless attempts to cast scepticism over Qatar’s open and progressive model of governance and to make a case for repeating their demand to shut down Al Jazeera. Shutting down Al Jazeera has been an objective of the quartet which owns dozens of media outlets but seems unable to compete with Al Jazeera, in what should be a free market of ideas. It seems like their inability to compete and gain credibility is what is driving these campaigns to defame Qatar and its various positions.”